president obama sat down with me in the blue room of the white house to discuss the way forward and his priorities for a second term. mr. president, welcome back to "meet the press." >> great to be here. thank you. >> the obvious question, are we going to go over the fiscal cliff? >> well, i think we'll find out in the next 48 hours what congress will decide to do. but i think it's important for the american people to understand exactly what this fiscal cliff is, because it's actually not that complicated. the tax cuts that were introduced in 2001, 2003, 2010, those were extended, and they are all about to expire at the end of the year. so on midnight, december 31st, if congress doesn't act, then everybody's taxes go up. and for the average family, that could mean a loss of $2,000 in income. for the entire economy, that means consumers have a lot less money to make purchases, which means businesses are going to have a lot less customers, which means that they are less likely to hire, and the whole economy could slow down at a time when the economy is actually starting to pick up. we are